Most motorcycles are provided with an elongate seat sized sufficient to accommodate at least two riders, including a driver and a rear passenger. In the riding of the motorcycle, the driver maintains proper balance and position upon the seat both by sitting upon the seat and engaging the seat and other portions of the motorcycle with legs of the driver, as well as holding onto the handlebars of the motorcycle. The rear passenger can similarly be supported upon the seat with the rear passenger's legs. The rear passenger will typically additionally extend hands around the waist of the driver. Without good hand support for the rear passenger, the rear passenger is less able to maintain balance safely upon the seat of the motorcycle.
Often the standard arrangement for the rear passenger to hold the waist of the driver is unacceptable. For instance, the rear passenger may be too far behind the driver to comfortably reach around the waist of the driver. The rear passenger may have a preference for avoiding such intimate contact with the driver. The driver may have a large waist which cannot easily be grasped by the rear passenger, or the driver may have a high susceptibility to discomfort when being held around the waist by the hands of the rear passenger, especially for long periods of time. In each of these cases, as well as others, a need exists for some form of handles for the rear passenger of the motorcycle which are connected directly to the motorcycle, and not to the driver.
In at least one case, it is known to attach rigid handles to a gas tank area directly forward of the driver's seat for grasping by the rear passenger. Such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,149 to Watanabe. With the Watanabe device, the rear passenger must extend arms forward a significant distance to reach the gas tank area of the motorcycle. Such an arrangement requires a particularly thin driver and a rear passenger sitting particularly close to the driver. Additionally, the rear passenger must typically remain in intimate contact with the driver to be able to adequately reach forward to grasp these rigid handles. Also, such rigid handles are permanently affixed to the motorcycle or require specialized tools for the attachment and detachment thereof. Hence, such a system as taught by Watanabe is not easily removable and used on multiple different motorcycles or easily retrofitted onto a motorcycle which does not already have accommodation for such handles, such as by predrilled and tapped holes provided upon the motorcycle. Finally, the rigid handles taught by Watanabe do not provide any degree of flexibility in the positioning of hands of the rear passenger, instead requiring each rear passenger to maintain a fixed precise body position so that the handles can be adequately reached.
Accordingly, a need exists for a motorcycle handles assembly which can be readily removably attached to the motorcycle and provide handles which can be grasped easily by the rear passenger with the rear passenger in a variety of different positions.